About my daily thoughts and life here in Lisbon

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Portugal is burning

Well I’m not supposed to be sitting in front of a laptop, I should be resting but I’m trying to take my mind off this heat. As if the London tower tragedy wasn’t enough, Portugal is now in shock over the sixty two people who died in the forest fire northeast of Lisbon yesterday. Most of them were burned to death in their cars as they tried to escape the flames and heat. Most of Portugal is reeling under a severe heatwave with temperatures around 40c and above. It’s little consolation that in the southwest USA, temperatures are even higher. Here in Portugal most people don’t have any airconditioning. It’s out of reach for people on Portugal’s low salaries. I must say that after sweltering through the night I’m tempted to go out to buy an airconditioner this morning. I might leave it until tomorrow after our guests have left.

Yesterday the weather forecast was spectacularly wrong. Our rainfall forecast was 0% all day long but I could see the sky darkening. I was forecasting a storm. At about 6 pm we had wonderful rain and thunder. Well it was more hailstones and thunder and it brought down the temperature for a while. I couldn’t enjoy the cool wind and rain as much as I wanted because I had to close the window shutters. The wind was driving the hailstones into the kitchen.

I’m trying to strike a happy balance between resting as much as possible and doing essential things at home. I’m reading as many blogs as I can but unfortunately I can’t send out many comments at the moment. I’ve almost abandoned facebook and I’m sure many friends will think I can’t be bothered. It’s nothing like that though.

Have a nice weekend, everybody. I hope you are much cooler than we are here.

I am so sorry to hear about this. It is such a tragedy. It is only the sensationalist London news that makes it to the Australian media it seems. That is also a sad state of affairs. I do hope that you get some relief from the heat soon.

I wish I could send you (and the rest of Portugal) some cool weather Dai. Such horrific news from Portugal….forest fires move so quickly. I hope you get your air con soon and you get some relief. Take it easier and keep your water intake at a good level.